Simono Daukanto Rygos ortografija (1827–1834)

Description

Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) was one of the most prominent activists of the Lithuanian national revival in the 19th century. He chose to write and publish his texts in Lithuanian, although at that time the dominant language of culture in Lithuania was Polish. Daukantas was the first historian ever to compose a history of Lithuania in Lithuanian. In addition to his volumes on Lithuanian history, Daukantas prepared several translations of histories of antiquity, dictionaries, popular pamphlets on husbandry, a primer, a grammar book, a prayer book, and an adventure book for children. In the first half of the 19th century Lithuanian orthography was not yet standardized. It was quite open to innovations and new ideas. Daukantas was an enthusiastic innovator of spelling, and he never really stopped innovating. His orthographic variations were probably greater than those of any other author who ever wrote in Lithuanian.